After leaving the imperial city, Zheng Hongkui saw that no one was following him, so he scolded him: "Damu, how could you agree to join the secretariat so quickly?"

Zheng Sen was puzzled, "What does Fourth Uncle think is wrong with this matter?"

Zheng Hongkui sighed, "Don't you understand? He wants to keep you as a hostage in Nanjing."

Zheng Sen burst out laughing after hearing this, and asked: "Fourth uncle, I, the Zheng family, are officials of the Ming Dynasty. Do I have any rebellious intentions?"

Zheng Hongkui was startled when he heard this. He quickly covered Zheng Sen's mouth, looked around again, then let go and whispered: "Why do you dare to say anything?"

"Fourth uncle, answer my question first," Zheng Sen said.

"Of course I, the Zheng family, are officials of the Ming Dynasty. As you know, my eldest brother only wants to keep the Zheng family rich forever and has no greater ambitions."

"Isn't that it?" Zheng Sen said, "Since my father has no second thoughts, how can I be considered a proton if I stay in Nanjing? This is the opportunity that the supervisor has given me to prove to my teacher. Of course I have to agree."

Hearing this, Zheng Hongkui could only sigh secretly and say no more.

Things in the world are always changing. Today, the Zheng family really has no qualms about the Ming Dynasty, but who can guarantee that it will always be like this in the future?

You need to know that even if tigers are harmless, people may not have the heart to hunt tigers...

Zheng Sen did not go to Zheng Hongkui's residence in Nanjing, but went to Qian Qianyi's residence.

Now that Qian Qianyi has lost his official status, his family can no longer be called Qian Mansion, but can only be called Qian Zhai.

When he came to the small garden of Qian's house, Zheng Sen found that Qian Qianyi was reading books and writing ink with Liu Rushi, looking elegant and cheerful. He seemed not to be depressed about losing his official position. He couldn't help but admire him and said to himself: The teacher is really open-minded.

people.

After Zheng Sen saluted and greeted, Qian Qianyi asked with a smile: "Today the Supervisor called Damu into the palace, is it for the Zheng family's naval affairs?"

Zheng Sen said: "It is indeed for this matter..."

Zheng Sen immediately told Qian Qianyi about the duel he and Zheng Hongkui had in Wuying Palace.

After saying that, he realized that Qian Qianyi was in a daze.

He asked strangely: "Teacher, what's wrong?"

Qian Qianyi came back to his senses and said: "I am happy for you - I have heard before that the Secretariat is a place that assists the Supervisor in handling government affairs, and there is a vague intention to replace the Supervisor of Ceremonies.

If you can join the secretariat, it means that you are very likely to be trained by the Prison State as a confidant, and you will have a bright future in the future.

Of course, my teacher is also very touched, I didn’t expect that you would complain on my behalf in front of the prison country.”

Zheng Sen said: "Teacher is a great figure in the world's literary world and a famous Confucian scholar. He should not have been dismissed from office without reason."

"Alas~"

Qian Qianyi sighed and said nothing.

As an official fan, he has also been working on this matter these days. Although he was not resurrected, he also found out some reasons why he was dismissed from office.

One theory is that he was implicated by Ruan Dajue, and the other is more mysterious: it is said that the princess learned from "later generations" that he had some unforgivable evil deeds, so she did not use him.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but wonder: Does the fact that the Supervisory State attaches so much importance to Zheng Sen mean that Zheng Sen has any commendable achievements in "later generations"?

So when he looked at Zheng Sen, his expression became more amiable.

"Yimu, not only were you born blessed, but you are also destined to become a great person in the future."

Zheng Sen: “??”

···

The next afternoon.

Zhu Yuluo held another court meeting with Wuyingdian.

The only attendees this time were the cabinet members and the ministers and ministers of the Ministry of Revenue and Finance, as well as the ministers, Yuanwailang and chief ministers of the two ministries in Nanjing.

"In order to stabilize the country, the most important thing in internal affairs is money and food. Today, I convened the cabinet, the Ministry of Accounts, and the main officials of the Ministry of Finance in Beijing to re-order the responsibilities of the Ministry of Accounts and the Ministry of Finance to make our Ming Dynasty more smooth, reasonable, and efficient.

The land collects money and grain, so that the use of money and grain can be more beneficial to the country of Ming Dynasty!"

At the beginning of the meeting, Zhu Yuluo set the theme.

The cabinet ministers, household ministers, and minister of finance who had already seen Zhu Yuyao's way of holding meetings were fine, but the other officials of the two ministries who were participating in such a meeting for the first time were very uncomfortable.

This time, Zhu Yuluo still arranged seats for the participating officials and asked them to take summary minutes of the meeting.

The difference is that the seven cabinet ministers and three ministers are sitting in the first two rows.

Officials from the Ministry of Accounts and the Ministry of Finance sat a few rows behind.

If all the officials of the sixth rank and above come here before the Household Department is checked, Wuying Hall may seem crowded even if it can accommodate enough seats.

However, in the previous inspection, most of the officials from the Ministry of Revenue were eliminated, and some people were poached by the Ministry of Finance, leaving even fewer people.

The Ministry of Finance is newly established, with no defined responsibilities and fewer people.

The total number of officials below the rank of Minister of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Finance and above, and above the sixth rank, does not exceed 20, and many of them were promoted after an inventory conducted by the Ministry of Household Affairs.

After saying the opening remarks, Zhu Yuyao asked Han Zanzhou to distribute two brochures to each minister.

This booklet talks about the agencies of the Ministry of Accounts and the Ministry of Finance respectively, as well as the responsibilities of each agency, and also states the significance of the existence of the agency.

While the ministers were looking through the booklet, Zhu Yuyao continued: "Previously, the Ministry of Household Affairs had the right to collect, transship, and store all taxes such as Da Mingtian tax and commercial tax.

At the local level, the Chief Secretary is divided into separate Purification and Civil Service Departments, which are responsible for the collection, transshipment, and warehousing of local taxes.

Facts have proven that such a model is not only easy to breed corruption, but also the use of tax power is quite dull and rigid, and the tax efficiency is still quite low.

Therefore, I separated a Ministry of Finance from the Ministry of Household Affairs, allowing the Ministry of Household Affairs to retain the right to collect land taxes and manage land acres, population, and grain.

As for the Ministry of Finance, it is mainly responsible for collecting commercial taxes - and as you are all smart people in the Ming Dynasty, you must know that since Xuande, our Ming Dynasty's commerce has become increasingly prosperous, but the increase in commercial taxes has been extremely slow.

During the Wanli period when Zhang Taiyue presided over the reform of the tax law, the highest commercial tax was only 900,000 taels a year.

After Zhang Taiyue, it declined year by year. In the last few years of the late Emperor's reign, the amount of commercial taxes that could be sent to Beijing every year was less than 100,000 taels!

From this we can see how big a problem there is in the collection of commercial taxes in Ming Dynasty. If we don’t make great efforts to solve it, how can the national fiscal and taxation increase?!"

On the other side, Hao Guangming listened to Zhu Yuluo's words and looked at the reactions of the ministers below through his mobile phone camera. When he saw that no one immediately raised his voice to object, he couldn't help but nodded slightly.

In later generations, some people had a misunderstanding about the Ming Dynasty: they believed that the Ming Dynasty did not collect commercial taxes, or that the means of collecting commercial taxes were not as good as those of the Song Dynasty, so they died of poverty.

But those who have truly understood the history of the Ming and Song dynasties will know that this is not the case.

The reason why the Song Dynasty was considered wealthy and had high business tax revenue was mainly due to the official sale system.

In the Ming Dynasty, only salt was sold by officials, but in the Song Dynasty, salt, iron, wine, vinegar and other things that were necessary for people's lives and that the government could control were all sold by officials!

The government selling system has little impact on the middle class and above, but it has a great impact on the people at the bottom - oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, etc. are indispensable in daily life. The government pricing is nothing to the wealthy, but it is easy to get it.

The fate of the poor people at the bottom.

Therefore, the life of the lower class people in the Song Dynasty was much more difficult than that in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang established various systems when he founded the country. He did not know that the system of selling officials in the Song Dynasty could make the country rich, but he did not want to squeeze the poor people too much, so he only sold salt to officials.

The income from official salt, even though there were various shortcomings in the late Ming Dynasty, was still the second largest income in the Ming Dynasty.

This shows the power of the official sales system to enrich the country.

As for the largest tax revenue in the Ming and Song dynasties, it was also land tax, which has never changed.

Various commercial taxes were only the third largest fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, the border taxes and other miscellaneous taxes added under special circumstances such as three rates are not included in the above discussion...

After a while, Zhu Yulao estimated that most people should have read the two booklets, so she asked: "Which of you can tell me about the current commercial tax system of the Ming Dynasty?"

Hearing Zhu Ainao's sudden question, all the ministers couldn't help but look at each other, but for a while no one answered.

Whether they are cabinet ministers or subordinate officials of the two ministries, most of them thought about it and found that they did not fully understand the Ming Dynasty commercial tax, so they naturally did not dare to agree.

There are also a few people who know some business tax matters. They are worried that they will not speak well and leave a bad impression on Zhu Aona, and they are also worried about causing criticism from their colleagues.

After all, in the past, whenever someone in the government proposed to raise commercial taxes, it would arouse a lot of opposition from both the government and the opposition, and the proposer would even be criticized by thousands of people.

Although the current situation in the Ming Dynasty is very different from that in the past, not everyone dares to take the risk.

Seeing that no one stood up, Zhu Ailao could not help frowning, feeling deeply disappointed.

When she was about to call Ma Shiying's name directly, she saw someone in the third row stand up.

"Su Guansheng, a doctor in charge of the Qing Dynasty in the Ministry of Household Affairs, is willing to speak about the commercial tax system for the supervising country!"

I saw that this man was in his forties, not very tall, with dark skin and thin skin, but a look of perseverance between his brows.

Zhu Ainao immediately smiled and said: "Su Qing, please tell me!"
Chapter completed!